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Matthew Baker
19th Feb 2025
5263
When searching companies on the companies house company information website the page keeps crashing
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Is it the same for others that pages keep failing to load with a "502 error" when trying to search companies on the company information search site? If its not just us, have companies house given any updates on why their website is so bad?
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Replies (20)
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By Kevin Kavanagh
19th Feb 2025 12:16
Yes had several this morning.
Thanks (1)
By Jason Croke
19th Feb 2025 12:22
Been having that error last couple of days, certainly yesterday I had to close browser and then re-open, refresh doesn't seem to work.
Presumably the boss at CH will be getting their annual bonus and nomination for the House of Lords shortly.
Thanks (6)
By stepurhan
19th Feb 2025 12:22
Been the case for a while now. Assumed it was a temporary error when it first happened, but it now appears to be a permanent, if random, "feature".
Thanks (8)
By Mr Hankey
19th Feb 2025 12:33
I regularly get "502 Bad Gateway" when searching Companies House. I thought it was just me!
Thanks (9)
By AdamJones82
19th Feb 2025 12:46
I've had 502 Bad Gateway on and off for months now.
Also a warning their certificate isn't up to date.
Shocking after they increased Confirmation Statement fees massively
Thanks (12)
By itsnotwaj
19th Feb 2025 13:01
I've had it happen a couple of times this morning also. Keep clicking that refresh button and see if it helps (it did for me).
Thanks (3)
By AS
19th Feb 2025 13:05
It has been happening for quite a while but has been getting worse recently. Is it a deliberate ploy to justify the increased Companies House fees?
Thanks (4)
By ireallyshouldknowthisbut
19th Feb 2025 13:23
I assume is a capacity issue.
I wonder if there are some "scrapers" pulling a lot of data from Companies House in an aggressisve manner making a lot of requests, and blocking legitimate ones. Or they have simple dropped the capacity to take requests.
Its been happening for a number of weeks.
if you hit refresh is normally pops up, but from a techcnially point of view if everyone is doing this (and especially the auto-scrapers) its flooding Companies House with requests which then causes the issue. Normaly a commercial system would choke the damand, but either blocking of choking large users, not allowing a refresh inside of a given time period (eg 30 seconds). But I guess Companies Hosue dont really care as its not a proper business so user experience is not relevant.
Thanks (11)
Replying to ireallyshouldknowthisbut:
By Jason Croke
19th Feb 2025 15:05
ireallyshouldknowthisbut wrote:
I assume is a capacity issue.
I wonder if there are some "scrapers" pulling a lot of data from Companies House in an aggressisve manner making a lot of requests, and blocking legitimate ones. Or they have simple dropped the capacity to take requests.
Its been happening for a number of weeks.
if you hit refresh is normally pops up, but from a techcnially point of view if everyone is doing this (and especially the auto-scrapers) its flooding Companies House with requests which then causes the issue. Normaly a commercial system would choke the damand, but either blocking of choking large users, not allowing a refresh inside of a given time period (eg 30 seconds). But I guess Companies Hosue dont really care as its not a proper business so user experience is not relevant.
Think you are right, scrapers.
Dan Neidle launched a new CH app that you can search to check for fraudulent companies, fascinating app but his and many other scrapers/API apps probably hammering the CH servers and it can't cope.
Thanks (7)
Replying to ireallyshouldknowthisbut:
By Ivor Windybottom
19th Feb 2025 16:02
Companies House should really validate users to manage capacity and stop the bots. I would not object if everyone had to log in to access the free data, provided that this remained a free service.
It seems to be the norm for a government service to be poor at getting their digital offering correct - looking at you HMRC, too.
Thanks (5)
By DJKL
19th Feb 2025 14:01
I was doing Confirmation Statements (3) plus year end date changes (6) yesterday, got crashed three times .
Thanks (2)
By paulwakefield1
19th Feb 2025 14:10
Ha! I thought. I wonder if it's browser specific as I haven't had any problems. So tried an experimental search. Result: "502 Bad gateway".
I wasn't having any problems until I read about it here. I blame you lot.
Thanks (7)
Replying to paulwakefield1:
By FactChecker
19th Feb 2025 16:09
OMG ... is it contagious? :=)
Thanks (7)
By Matrix
19th Feb 2025 19:07
I had trouble too, only just found a prospect’s record after a number of attempts today. It took a bit of detective work as she uses her maiden name for work and her married name on CH. So maybe I have my answer.
Thanks (2)
By Lisa Thomas - Insolvency Practitioner
20th Feb 2025 09:13
Yes it's been annoying me for about 2 weeks - constantly crashing.
Thanks (4)
By bendybod
20th Feb 2025 10:48
Yep. Random numbers of going back out and back in / refreshing / closing the browser works until you try going in to the next one. Doing a software migration currently so making sure the delightful clients with strange year ends (shortened by a day at least once, if not three times) are definitely as per CH.
Thanks (3)
By Polopols
20th Feb 2025 11:45
I thought this was just me...lol
It seems to always crash on google chrome. If it does crash I switch browsers to edge and usually it works ok on edge, so try switching browsers when it happens (might help)
Thanks (2)
By 123 Financials
20th Feb 2025 17:13
Like many others, I thought it was just me, too, and I updated browsers, reinstalled Chrome, and did all the troubleshooting I could.
Companies House must fix it; overload and scrappers are not a good reason if that's what Companies House has to say.
Thanks (3)
By Husbandofstinky
21st Feb 2025 11:27
Putin and Russia's shadow fleet.....?
On a serious note, it has been going on for a while and just refresh. It usually works. Still a PITA, but worse things have happened at sea (sorry!).
Thanks (3)
By SBS33
21st Feb 2025 11:52
Yes! It's been happening to me every day for the past week or so....
I just keep refreshing my screen and I usually get through in the end. But a massive irritation when one is in a hurry and multi-tasking!
Thanks (1)
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